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SPEECH 

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Delivered in the Senate of the United States, Feb. 11, 1847. 



Mr, President: I am not now about to perform the useless task of surveying the whole field 
of debate occupied in this discussion. It has been carefully reaped, and by vigilant and strong 
hands; and yet, Mr. President, there is a part of tliat field, which promises to reward a careful 
cleaner with a valuable sheaf or two, which deserve to be bound up before the whole harvest 
is gathered. And still this so tempting prospect could not have allured me into this debate, 
had that motive not been strengthened by another, somewhat personal to myself, and still 
more interesting to those I represent. Anxious as I know all are to act, rather than debate, 
I am compelled, for the reasons I have assigned, to solicit the attention of the Senate. I do.,, 
this chiefly that I may discharge the humble duty of giving to the Senate, and through this me- 
dium to my constituents, the motives and reasons which nave impelled me to occupy a position, 
always undesirable, but in times like the present, painfully embarrassing. 

I have been compelled, from convictions of duty which I could not disregard, to differ, not 
merely with those on the other side of the chamber, with whom I seldom agree, but also to 
aeparate, on one or two important questions, from a majority of my friends on this side — those 
who compose here that Whig party, of which I suppose I may yet call myself a member. 

Diversity of opinion on most subjects affecting human affairs is to be expected. Unassisted 
mind, in its best estate, has not yet attained to uniformity, much less to absolute certainty, in 
matters belonging to the dominion of speculative reason. This is peculiarly and emphatically 
true, where we endeavor to deduce from the present, results, the accomplishment of which, 
reach far into the future, and will only clearly develope themselves in the progress of time. — 
From the present state of the human mind this is a law of intellect quite as strong as neces- 
eity. And yet after every reasonable allowance for the radical difference in intellectual struc- 
ture, culture, habits of thought, and the application of thought to things, the singularly opposite 
avowals made by the two Senators on the other side of the chamber, (I mean the Senator 
from South Carolina, Mr. Calhoun, and the Senator from Michigan, Mr. Cass,) must have 
struck all who heard them, as a curious and mournful example of the truth of which I have 
spoken. The Senator from Michigan, (Mr. Cass,) in contemplating the present aspects and 
probable future course of our public affairs, declared, that he saw nothing to alarm the fears or 
depress the hopes of the patriot. To his serene, and as I fear, too apathetic mind, all is calm; 
the sentinel might sleep securely on his watch tower. The ship of State seems to him to ex- 
pand her sails under a clear sky and move on, with prosperous gales, upon a smooth sea. He 
admonishes all not to anticipate evil to come, but to fold their hands and close their eyes in 
quietude, ever mindful of the consolatory text, "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." But 
tne Senator from South Carolina, (Mr. Calhoun,) summoning from the depths of his thought- 
ful and powerful mind all its energies, and looking abroad on the present condition of the Re- 
public, ia pained with fearful apprehension, doubt, distrust andaismay. To his vision, made 
strong by a long life of careful observation, made keen by a comprehensive view of past history, 
the sky seems overcast with impending storms, and the dark future is shrouded in impenetrable 
gloom. When two such minds thus differ, those less familliar with great subjects atrecting the 
happiness of nations may well pause, before they rush to a conclusion on this, a subject which, 
in all its bearings, immediate and remote, eflects cer^imZy the present prosperity, and probably 
the liberty of two Republics, embracing together nearly thirty millions of people. Mr. Presi- 
dent, it is a fearful responsibility we have assumed; engaged in flagrant, desolating war with a 
neighboring Republic to us, thirty millions of God's creatures look up for that moderated wis- 
dom which, if possible, may stay the march of misery and restore to them, if it may be so, 
mutual feelings of good will, with all the best blessings of peace. 

I sincerely wish it were in my power to cherish those placid convictions of security which 
hav e settled upon the mind of the Senator from Michigan. So far from this, I have been, in 
Stevensonj Looker & Todd, j^ysig,Q^(^e, Cijocinu»,%u 



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common with the Senator from South Carolina, oppressed with melancholy forebodings of evila 
to come, and not unfrequently by a conviction that each step we take in this unjust war, may be 
the last in our career ; that each chapter we write in Mexican blood, may close the volume of 
our history as a tree people. Sir, I am the less inclined to listen to the siren song the Senator 
from Michigan sings to his own soul, because I have heard its notes before. I know ihe country 
is at this moment suffering from the fatal apathy into which it was lulled a few years ago. — 
Every one must recall to his mind, with pleasing regret, the happy condition of the country in 
1843, when that other question, the prelude to this, the annexation of Texas, was agitated here ; 
we remember how it attracted the attention of the whole Union ; we remember that the two 
great leaders of the two great parties agreeing in scarcely any other opinion, were agreed in 
that. They both predicted that if Texas were annexed, war with Mexico would be the proba- 
ble result. We were told then by others, as now by the Senator from Michigan, that all was 
well, all was calm, that Mexico would not fight, or if she would, she was too weak to wage the 
struffgle with any effect upon us. The sentinel was then told to sleep upon his watch-tower; 
" suthcient unto the day is the evil thereof," wasfsung to us then, in notes as soft and sweet as 
now. Mr. President, " the day" has come, and with it has come war, the 'most direful curse 
wherewith it has pleased God to afflict a sinful world. Such have been the fatal effects of lul- 
ling into apathy the public mind, on a subject which agitated it, as well it might, to its profound- 
est depths. 

I repeat, sir, the day has come, as was then predicted, and the evil predicted has come with it. 
We are here, sir, now, not as then, at peace with all the world — not now, as then, with laws 
that brought into vour treasury everything adequate to its wants — not now, as then, free from 
debt and the apprehension of debt and taxation, its necessary consequence. But we are here 
with a treasury that is beggared^-that lifts up its imploring hands to the monopolists and capi- 
talists of the country — that sends out its notes and " promises to pay" into every mart and every 
market in the world — begging for a pittance from every hand to help to swell the amount now 
necessary to extricate us from a war — inevitable, as it now seems it was, from that very act 
which was adopted under such flattering promises two years ago. Mr. President, it is no pur- 
pose of mine to arraign the conduct of the United States upon that occasion. It is no purpose 
of mine to treat this young and newly adopted sister — the State of Texas — as an alien or stran- 
ger in this family of Republics. I allude to this only to show, how little reliance is to be placed 
upon those favorable anticipations in which gentlemen indulge with regard to consequences 
which may flow from measures, to which they are strongly wedded, either by feeling or party 
attachment. 

Is there nothing else in our history of even the past year to justify the Senator from South Car- 
olina in the pregnant declaration, that in the whole period of his public life, comprehending the 
most eventful in the history of the Republic, there had never been a time when so much danger 
was threatened to the interests, happiness, and liberties of the people. Sir, if any one could 
set down, free from the excitements and biases which belong to public affairs — could such an one 
betake himself to those sequestered solitudes, where thoughtful men extract the philosophy of 
history from its facts, I am quite sure no song of " all's well" would b« heard from his retired 
cell. No, sir, lookino; at the events of the last twelve months, and forming his judgment of these 
by the suggestions which history teaches, and which she alone c«7t teach, he would record ano- 
ther of those sad lessons which, though often taught, are, I fear, forever to be disregarded. He 
would speak of a Republic, boasting that its rights were secured, and the restricted powers of 
its functionaries bound up in the chajnsof a written Constitution; he would record on his page, 
also, that such a people, in the wantonness of strength or the fancied security of the moment, 
had torn that written Constitution to pieces, scattcredits fragments to the winds, and surrendered 
themselves to the usurped authority of ONE MAN, 

He would find written In that Constitution, Congress shall have power to declare war ; he 
would find every where in that old charter, proofs clear and strong, that ibey who framed it in- 
tended that Congress, composed of two Houses, the representatives of the States and the people, 
should, (if any were pre-eminent,) be the controlling power. He would find there a President 
designated, wnose general and almost exclusive duty it is to execute, not to moAe the law. — 
Turning from this to the history of the last ten months, he would find tha. the President alone, 
without the advice or consent of Congress, had, by a bold usurpation, made war on a neighbor- 
ing Republic ; and what is ouite as much to be deplored, that Congress, whose high powers were 
thus set at naught and defied, had, with ready and tame submission, yielded to the usurper the 
wealth and power of the nation to execute his will, as if to swell his iniquitous triumph over the 
very Constitution which he and they had alike sworn to support. 

If any one should inquire for the cause of a war in this country, where should he resort for an 
answer? Surely to the journals of both Houses of Congress, since Congress alone has power to 
declare war; yet although we have been engaged in war for the last ten months, a war which 
has tasked all the fiscal resources of the country to carry it forward, you shall search the records 
and the archives of both Houses of Congress in vain for any detail of its causes, any resolve of 
Congress that war shall be waged. How is it, then, that a peaceful and peace-loving people, 
happy beyond the common lot of man, busy in every laudable pursuit of life, have been forced 
to turn suddenly from these and plunge into the misery, the vice, and crime which ever have 
been and ever shall be the attendant scourges of war? The answer can only be, it was by the 
act and will of the President oiowe, and not by the act or will of Congress, the war-making de- 
partment of the Government. 

Mr. President, was it not due to ourselves, to the lofty character for peace aa well as probity 
which we profess to be ours, and which till recently we might justly claim— was it not due to 
the civilization of the age, ihat we, the representatives of the States and the people, should have 
set forth the causes which might impel us to invoke the fatal arbitrament of war, before we 
madly rushed upon it? Even the Senator from South Carolina, attached as he has been by party 



ties to the President, and therefore, as we may suppose, acquainted with his motives for his war 
with Mexico, was compelled to say the other day in debate, that, up to that hour, the causes of 
this war were left to conjecture. The reason of this singular anomaly, sir, is to be lound in the 
fact tha' the President and not Congress declared and commenced this war. How is this, Mr. 
President? H'jw is it that we have so disappointed the intentions of our fathers, and the hopes 
of all tht- iri' Jids of written Constitutions? When the makers of that Constitution assigned to 
Congress alone, the most delicate and important power — -to declare war— a power more inti- 
mately ariicting the interests, immediate and remote, of the people, than any which a govern- 
ment is f'ver called on to exert — when they withheld this great prerogative from the Executive 
and conliueu it to Congress alone, they but consulted in this, as in every other work of their 
hands, tlie gathered wisdom of all preceding times. Whether they looked to the stern despotisms 
of the ancient Asiatic world, or the military yoke of imperial Kome, or the feudal institutions 
of the middle ages, or the more modern monarcliies of Europe, in each and all of these, where 
the power to wage war was held by one or by a few, it had been used to sacritice, not to protect 
the many. I'lie caprice or ambition of the tvrant had always been the cause of bloody and 
wasting war, vvhile the subject millions had been treated by their remorseless masters, only as 
" tools in vho hands of him who knew how to use them." They therefore declared, that this 
fearful povv-er should be confided to those who represent the people, and those who here in the 
Senate n Dresent the sovereign States of the Republic. After securing this power to Congress, 
they tho lifut it safe to give the command of the armies in peace and war to the President. We 
shall see liHreafter, how bv an abuse of his power as commander-in-chief, the President has 
drawn to iuinielf that of declaring war, or commencing hostilities with a people with whom we 
were on teri>is of peace, which is substantially the same. 

The men ol former times took very good care that your standing army should be exceedingly 
small, and tlicy who had the most lively apprehensions of investmg in one man the power to 
command tSo army, always inculcated upon the minds of the people, the necessity of keeping 
that army within limits, just as small as the necessity of the external relations ol the country 
would pii.«Eil,>iy admit. It has happened, Mr. President, that when a little disturbance on your 
Indian frontier took place, Congress was invoked ibr an increase of your military force. Gen- 
tlemen came liere who had seen partial service in the armies of the United States. They tell 
you that the militia of the country is not to be relied upon — that it is only in the regular army 
of the Uniie.<l ^^tates, that you are to find men competent to fight the battles of the country, and 
from time to time when that necessity has seemed to arise, forgetting this old doctrine, that a 
large staiidine: army in time of peace was always dangerous to human liberty, we have increased 
that army {io:n six thousand up to about sixteen thousand men. Mr. President, the other day, 
we gave ten regiments more ; and for not giving it within the quick time demanded by our mas- 
ter, the comrn-.inder-in-chief, some minion — I know not who, for I have not looked into this 
matter until tins morning — feeding upon the fly-blown remnants that fall from the Executive 
shambles and lie putrifving there, nas denounced us as Mexicans, and called the American Re» 

public to take notice, that there was in the Senate, a body of men chargeable with incivism 

Mexicans \n heart — traitors to the United States. 

1 trust, IMr. President, that our master will be appeased by the facility with which, immediately 
after that rebuke of his minion, the Senate acted upon the bill and gave him the army which he 
required. I rrust that he will now forget that law which, as commander-in-chief of the army of 
the United Slates and President of this great North American Republic for the time being, he 
promulgati-.J to us in the message, and mose commands which he was pleased to deliver at'the 
opening of 'his session to his faithful and humble servitors in both branches of the American 
Congress, admonishing us that we would be considered as giving " aid and comfort" to his ene- 
my — not ours! — his — if one word should be said unfavorable to tne motives which have brought 
the royal will to the conclusion that he would precipitate this Republic into a war with Mexico! 
I trust hip Mnjasty, in consideration of our faitnful services in augmenting the forces of the Re- 
public agrr'tabiy to the commands which we have received from the throne, will be induced to 
relax a fitiie when he comes to execute that law of treason upon one at least so humble as my- 
self! I do retnember, Mr. President — you will remember, Mr. President — your recollection of 
history will furnish you with a case which will, I think, operate in my favor in a question of 
that sort. 

Some time in the history of the royal Tudors in England, when a poor Englishman, for dif- 
fering fron; Kis Majesty, or Her Majesty, on some subject — it might be religious faith — was con- 
demned to bo hs.nged and quartered and emboweled, out of special grace, in a particular case 
where pentonce was expressed, the hangman was admonished to give the culprit time to choke 
before he began to chop up his limbs andtake out his bowels ! 

Now, M.-. President, I nave already stated that I do not intend to occupy the Senate with a 
discussion of those varieties of topics which naturally enforce themselves upon my attention in 
consideritij.; this subject. It must have occurred to every body how utterly impotent the Con- 
gress of tho United States no«) is for any purpose whatever, but that of yielding to the President 
every demand which he makes for men and money, unless they assume that only position which 
is left— thai which in the history of other countries, in times favorable to human liberty, has 
been so often resorted to as a check upon arbitrary power — withholding money, refusing to 
grant the s?v vices of men when demanded for purposes which are not deemed to be proper. 

When I review the doctrines of the majority here, and consider their application to the exist- 
ing war, I i^onfecE I am at a loss to determine whether the world is to consider our conduct as a 
ridiculous iarce, or be lost in amazement at such absurdity in a people calling themselves free. 
The President, without asking the consent of Congress, involves us in war, and the majority 
here, with.jut reference to the justice or necessity of the war, call upon us to grant men and 
money at the pleastue of the President, who they say, is charged with the duty of carrying on 



the war and responsible for its result. If we grant the means thus demanded, the President can 
carry torward this war for any end, or from any motive, without limit u! time or place. 

With these doctrines for our guide, I will thank any Senator to furnish me with any means 
of escaping from the prosecution of this or any other war, for an hundred years to coine, if it 
please the President who shall be, to continue it so long. Tell me, ye who contend that being in 
war, duty demands of Congress for its prosecution, alfthe money and pvery abl«-bodied man in 
America to carry it on if need be, who also contend that it is the right ol the President, without 
the control of Congress, to march your embodied hosts to Monterey, to Yucatan, to Mexico, to 
Panama, to China, and that under penalty of death to the officer who disobeys him — tell me, 1 
demand it of you, tell me, tell the American people, tell the nations of Christendotn, what is the 
difference between your American democracy and the most odious, most hateful despotism, that 
a merciful God has ever allowed a nation to be afflicted with since eovsrnment on earth began? 
You may call this free government, but it is such freedom, and no other, as of old war, fsiablished 
at Babylon, at Susa, at Bactriana, or Persepolis. Its parallel is scarcely to be found when thu8 
falsely understood, in any even the worst forms of civil polity in mod' rn times. Sir, it is not 
80, such is not your Constitution, it is something else, something other und better than this. 

I have looked at this subject with a painful endeavor to come to the conclusion if tiossible, 
that it was my duty, as a Senator of the United States, finding the country in war, to '' nght it 
out," as we say in the common and popular phrase of the times, to a just nvid lionoriiblo peace I 
I could very easily concede that to be my duty if I found my country en£;aged in a. just war — in 
a war necessary even to protect that fancied honor of which you talk -to much. I then should 
have some apology in the judgment of my country, in the determination of my conscictice, and 
in that appeal which you, and I, and all of us must soon be required to make before a tribunal, 
where this vaunted honor of the Republic, I fear me, will gain but little credit as a defence to 
any act we may perform here in tiie Senate of the United States. 

But when I am asked to say whether I will prosecute a war, I cannot ansv/er th:it question, 
yea or nay, until I have determined whether that was a necessary war; and I cannot determine 
whether it was necessary until I know how it was that my country wa.^ involved in it. And it 
is to that particular point, Mr. President — without reading document;-, hut referring to a few 
facts which I understand not to be denied on either side of this chamber — that I wl;sh to direct 
the attention of the American Senate, and so far as may be, that of any of the nobi>^ and hon- 
est-hearted constituents whom I represent here. I know, Mr. President, the rospon.^iVility which 
I assume in undertaking to determine that the President of the United States has don-^ a great 
wrong to the country, whose honor and whose interest he was required to protect. I know the 
denunciations which await every one who shall dare to put himself in oppoi-ition to that high 
power — that idol god — which the people of this country have made to thernselve.s and called a 
President. 

But it is my very humility which makes me bold. I know, sir, that he wlio was told in form- 
er time how to govern a turbulent people was advised to cut ofl' the tallest heads. Mine will 
escape ! 3till, holding a seat here, Mr. President, and finding it writtrn in the Constitution of 
my country that I had the power to grant to the President at his bidding, or not, as T pleased, 
men and money, I did conceive that it became my duty to ascertain whether the Preyidiiit's re- 
quest was a reasonable one — whether the President wanted these men and thi.s money for a 
proper and laudable purpose or not ; and with these old-fashioned ideas — 'juite as unpopular I fear 
with some on this side of the Chamber as we find them to be on the other — I set myself to this 
painful investigation. I found not quite enough along with me to have saved the unrighteoua 
city of old. 

There were not five of us, but only three ! And when these votes were called, and I was 
compelled to separate myself from almost all around me, I could have cried as did the man of 
Uz in his affliction in the elder time—" What time my friends wax warm they v.anish, when it 
is hot they are consumed out of their places !" 

I could not leave the position in which it had pleased the State of Ohio to place inc, nnd I re- 
turned again and again to the original and primary and important inquiry — how is it that my 
country is involved in this war ? I looked to the President's account of it, and he tells me it was 
a war for the defence of the territory of the United States. I found it wriiten in that message, 
Mr. President, that this war was not sought nor forced upon Mexico by the people of the United 
States. I shall make no question of history or the truth of history with my master, the com- 
mander-in-chief, upon that particular proposition. On the contrary, I could verify every word 
that he thus utters. Sir, I know that the people of the United States nt ither sought nor forced 
Mexico into this war, and yet I know that the President of the United States, with the command 
of your standing army, did seek that war, and that he forced war upon Mexico. I am not about 
to afflict the Senate with a detail of testimony on that point. I will simply state facts which 
few I trust will be found to deny. 

One of the facts, Mr. President, is this: That in the year of grace, 183f). the battle of San Ja- 
cinto was fought. Does any body deny that? No one here will doubt that fact. The result of 
that battle was that a certain district of country, calling itself Texas, declared itself a free and 
independent Republic. I hope the Senate will ptirdon me for uttering a thought or two which 
eti-ike me just now while I see the Senator from Texas, the leader of the men who achi ved that 
victory, before me. I wish to say a word or two about the great glory, the hi -i.irical renown, 
that is to come to the people of the United States by the victories wliich we shMli obtnin over the 
arms and forces of the Republic Mexico. I suppose, Mr. President, lik^- ••" ' r boy.'-, in my 
early youth, when I had an opportunity of looking at a book called hist v e which spoke 

of bloody battles and desolating wars were most likely to attract my attniticm, nnd with very 
limited means of ascertaining that portion of the history of the human race, it nevertheless has 
impressed itself very vividly upon my mind that there have been great wars, and, as the old 
maxim has it, "many brave men, before Agamemnon." 



Sir, the world's annals show very many ferocious sieges, and battles, and onslaughts, before 
San Jacinto, Palo Alto, or Monterey. Generals of bloody renown have frightened the nations 
before the revolt of Texas, or our invasion of Mexico; and I suppose we Americans might prop- 
erly claim some share in this martial reputation, since it was won by our own kindred, men 
clearly descended from Noah, the great "propositus" of our family, with whom we all claim a 
very endearing relationship. But! confess I have been somewhat surprised of late that men, 
read in the history of man. who knew that war has been his tradeforsix thousand years, (prompt- 
ed, I imagine, by those "noble instincts" spoken of by the Senator from Michigan,) who knew 
that the hrpt man born of woman was a hero of the first magnitude, that he met his shepherd 
brother in deadly conflict, and most heroically beat out his brains with a club — I say, sir, 1 am 
somewhat puzzled when I liear those who knew all these things well, nevertheless shouting 
paeans of glory to the American name, lor the few deeds of death which our noble little army in 
Mexico have as yet been able to achieve. 

But, sir, let me recur again to the battle of San Jacinto. The Senator from Texas, (General 
Houston,) now in his seat, commanded there. His army consisted of about seven hundred and 
fifty men. These were collected from all parts of the United States, and from the population of 
Texas, then numbering about ten thousand souls. With this army, undisciplined, badly armed, 
and indifferently furnished iu all respects, the Senator from Texas conquered a Mexican army of 
about 3,'i00 men, took tlieir commander, Santa Anna, then President of Mexico, prisoner, with the 
whole of his forces. Texas declared her independence, and alone maintained it against the power 
of Mexico for seven years, and since that time has been a State under the shield of our protec- 
tion. It is against this same Mexico, that twenty millions of Anglo-Saxon Americans send forth 
their armie.s. 'i'he great North American Republic buckles on her armor, and her mighty bosom 
heaves with the ^^guadia ccrtaninix," as she marches under her eagle banners to encounter a foe, 
who ten years ago, was whipyied by an army of seven hundred and fifty undisciplined militia, 
and bereft of a territory larger than the Empire of FrtKiee, which her conqueror held iri her des- 
pite for seven years, and then quietly transferred her territory and power to you. Sir, it the joint 
armies of the United States and Texas are to acquire renown by vanquishing Mexico, what 
honors are too great to be denied to Texas for her victory over this Mexico ten years ago. If, by 
vanquisiiing such a foe, you are to win renown in war, what laurels should you not wreath 
around the brows of those \v\in fought at San Jacinto, especially when history tells ot the killed 
and wounded in the latter tigl;t/ She records that just three were killed in mortal combat, whilst 
two died of their wounds "wlien the battle was done!!!". Oh, Mr. President, does it indeed be- 
come this great Republic to cii"iish the heroic wish to measure arms with the long since conquer- 
ed, die racted, anarchic, and niiseraWe Mexico? 

Mr. President, I trust v/e shall abandon the idea, the heathen, barbarian notion, that our true 
national glory is to be won. or retained, by military prowess or skill, in the art of destroying life. 
And, whilst I caimot but hunent for the permanent and lasting renown of my country, that she 
should command tlie service of her children in what I must consider wanton, unprovoked, unne- 
cessary^ and therefore, unjust war, I can yield to the brave soldier, whose trade is war, and whose 
duty is obedience, the higliest meed of praise for his courage, his enterprise and perpetual endu- 
rance of the fatigues and horrors of war. I know the gallant men who are engaged in fighting 
your battles possess personal I lavery equal to any troops, in any land, any where engaged in the 
business of war. I do not believe we are less capable in the art of destruction than others, or 
less willlog,on the slightest pretext, to unsheath the sword, and consider "revenge a virtue." I 
could wi^h also, that your brave soldiers, whilst they bleed and die on the battle-tield might have 
(what in this war is impossible) the consolation to feel and know, that their blood flowed in de- 
fence of a great right, that their lives were a meet sacrifice to an exalted principle. 

But sir, I return to our rehuions with Mexico. Texas, I have shown, having won her inde- 
pendence and torn from Mexico about one-fourth part of her territory, comes to the United States, 
sinks hor natic)nal character into the less elevated but more secure position of one of the United 
States of America. .The revolt of Texas, her successful war with Mexico, and the consequent 
lo^sof a v;i!uable province, all inured to the ultimate benefit of our government and our country. 
While Mexico was weakened and humbled, we in the same proportion were strengthened and 
elevated — all this was done against the wish, the interest, and the earnest remonstrance of 
Mexico. 

Every one can feel, if he will examine himself for a moment, what must have been the mingled 
emotions of pride, humiliation, and bitter indignation, which raged in the bosoms of the Mexican 
people, when they saw one oftlirir fairest provinces torn from them by a revolution, moved by a for- 
eign people; and that province, by our act and our consent, annexed to the already enormous ex- 
panse of otjr territory, it is idle, Mr. President, to suppose that the Mexican people would not feel 
as deeply for the dismemberment and disgrace of their country as you would for the dismember- 
ment of this Union of ours. Sir, there is not a race, nor tribe, nor people on earth, who have an 
organi7„-;d, social, or politicial existence, who have clung with more obstinate affection to every 
inch of soil they could call their own, than this very Spanish, this Mexican, this Indian race, in 
that country. So strong and deep is this sentiment in the heart of that half savage, halt civil- 
ized race, that it has become not merely an opinion, a principle, but with them an unreasoning 
fanaticism. So radically deep and strong has this idea rooted itself into the Mexican mind, that 
I learn recently, it lias been mads a part of the n^w fundamental law, that not an inch of Mexi- 
can soil shall ever be alienated to a foreign powei. that her territory shall remain entire as long 
as her Republic endures; that, if one of her limbs be forcibly severed from her, death shall ensue 
unless that lirnb slrdl ba reunited to th<= parent trunk. V/ith such a people, not like you, as you 
fondly, and I fear vainly boast yourselves, a highly civilized, reasoning, and philosophical race, 
but a people who upon tiie fierce barbarism of the old age have entrrafted the holy sentiments of 
patriotism of a later birth: witli \v.~\. such a people, the pride of independence and the love of 
country combine to inflame and sublimate patriotic attachment into a feeling dearer than life, 
stronger than death. 



What were the sentiments of such a people toward us when they learned that at the battle of 
San Jacinto there were only seventy-five men of tljeir own country, out of the se\t;n hundred and 
fifty who conquered thetn on that day; and that every other man of that conquering army, who 
fought that battle and dismembered their Republic oi one-fourth part of its territory, had but re- 
cently gone there from thia country, was fed by our people, and armed and equipped in the United 
States to do that very deed. 

I do not say that Mexico had a right to make war upon us, because our citizens chose to seek 
their fortunes in the fields of Texas. I do not say she had a right to treat you as a belligerent 
power, because you permitted your citizens to march in battalions and regiments from your snores, 
for the avowed purpose of insurrectionary war in Texas — but I was not alone at the lime in ex- 
pressing my astonishment, that all this did not work an open rupture between the two Kepublics 
at hit time. We all remember your proclamations of neutrality — we know that in defiance of 
these, your citizens armed themselves and engaged in the Texan revolt; and it is true that with- 
out such aid Texas would this day have been, as she then was, an integral portion of the Mexi- 
cm Republic. Sir, Mexicans knew this then; they knew it when, seven years after, you coolly 
took this province under your protection and made it your own. Do you wonder, therefore, after 
all this, that when Texas did thus forcibly pass away from them and come to us, that prejudice 
amounting to hate, resentment as implacable as revenge toward us, should seize and possess and 
madden the entire population of a country thus weakened, humbled, contemned. 

Mr. President, hovv would the fire of indignation haveburned in every bosom here, if the gov- 
ernment of Canada, with the connivance of the Crown of England, had permitted its peopU'. to 
arm themselves, or it might be, had allowed its regiments of trained mercenary troops stationed 
there, to invade New York, and excite her to revolt, telling them that the Crown of England 
was the natural and paternal ruler of any people desiring to be free and happy — thtii your govern- 
ment was weak, factious, oppressive — that man withered under its baleful influence — that your 
stars and stripes were only emblems of degradation, and symbols of faction — tiiat England'a 
lion, rampant on his field of gold, was the appropriate emblem of power, and symbol of national 
glory^and they succeeded in alienating the weak or wicked of your people from vou — should we 
not then have waged exterminating war upon England, in every quarter of the globe, where her 
people were to be found. 

It, sir, I say, old mother England had sent her children forward to you with such a purpoea 
and message as that, and had severed the State of New York from you, and then, for some aiffi- 
culty about the boundary along between it and Pennsylvania and New jersey, running up some 
little tide creek here, and going oflT a little degree or two there, should have said, "We have a 
dispute about this boundary; we have some forty thousand regular troops planted upon the 
boundary, and I wish you to understand that I am very strong — that I have not only thirty mil- 
lions of people upon the soil of Great Britain that own my sovereign sway, but away upon the 
other side of the globe, ri^lit under you, there the Lion of England commands the obedience of 
one hundred and twenty millions more. It becomes you, straggling Democrats, here in this new 
world, to be a little careful how you treat me. You are not Celts exactly — nor are you quite 
Anglo-Saxons, but you are a degenerate, an alien, a sort of bastard race. I have taken your 
New York; I will have your Matsachusetts." And all this is submitted to the Aiiierican Senate, 
and we are gravely discussing what ought to be done. Would we be likely to ratify a treaty 
between New York and the Crown of England, permitting New York to becouie a part of the 
colonial possessions of England? 

I should like to hear my colleague (Mr. Allen) speak to such a question as tliat. I should 
like to hear the voice of this Democracy that you talk about, called upon to utter its tones on a 
question like that. If he who last year was so pained lest an American citizen away — God 
knows where!— in some latitude beyond the Rocky Mountains— should be obedient to British law 
— if he whose patriotic and republican apprehension was so painfully excited lest the right of 
ha'jeas corpus and trial by jury, which every Englishman carries with him in his pocket wherever 
he goes, should be made to bear upon an American citizen — were called upon to speak upon 
such a proposition as that which I have supposed, I should certainly like to hear how he would 
treat it. Yet, the question being reversed, that is piecisely the condition in whicri Mexico stood 
towards you after San .Jacinto was fought, and on the day Texas was annexed. 

Your people did go to Texas. I remember it well. They went to Texas to fight for their 
riqrhts. They pould not fight for them m their own country. Well, they foughr for their rights. 
Tiey conquered them! They "conquered a peace!" They were your citizeii.« — not Me.xicans. 
T ley were recent emigrants lo that country. Tliey went there for the very purpose of seizing 
on that country, and making it a free ami independent Republic, with a view, as some of them 
said, of bringing it into the American confederacy in due time. Is this poor Celtic brother of yours 
in Mexico — is the Mexican man sunk so low that he cannot hear what fills the mouth and ear of 
rumor all over this country? He knows that this was the settled purpose of some of your peo- 
ple. He knows that your avarice had fixed its eairle glance on these rich acres in Mexico, and 
that your proud power counted the number that could bo brought against you, and that your ava- 
rice and your power toijether marched on to the subjugation of the third or fourth part of the 
Republic of Mexico, and took it from her. We knew this, and knowing it, what sliould have 
been the feeling and sentiment in the nund of the President of the United States; towards puch a 
people — a people, at least in their own opinion, so deejjly injured by us as were these Mexicans. 

The Republic of Texas comes under the Government of the United States, and it hapjiens that 
the Minister resident at your Court— and it is a pretty respectable Court, Mr. Pr' .-iidont — wt have 
something of a King — not for life it is true, but a quadrennial sort of a monarcli. who does very 
much as ne pleases — the Minister resident at that Court of yours stated^t the time that this re- 
volted province of Texas was claimed by Mexico, and that if you received it as one et the 
sovereign States of this Union, right or wrong, it was impossible to reason with this people 
about it — they would consider it as an act of hostility. Did you consult the national feeling of 
Mexico then? 



The President has now to deal with a people thus humbled, thus irritated. It was his duty to 
concede much to Mexico, every thing but his country's honor or her righls. Was this done? 
Not at all! Mexico and her Minister were alike spurned as weak and trivial things, whose com- 
plaints you would not hear or heed; and when she humbly implored you not to take this prov- 
ince, declared that it might disturb the peace subsisting between us, you were still inexorable. 
During this time, she was forcing loans from her citizens to pay the debt she owed yours, fulfill 
ing her treaties with you by painful exactions from her own people. She begged of you to let 
Texas alone. If she were independent, let her enjoy her independence. If free, let her revel in 
her new-born liberty, in.defiance of Mexico, as she alleged she would and could. Your stern reply 
was. No! we will, at your expense, strengthen our own arm, by uniting to ourselves that which 
has been severed from you by our own citizens; we will take Texas; we will throw the shield of 
our Constitution over her rights, and the sword of our power shall gleam like that at Eden, 
"turning every way," to guard her against further attack. 

Her Minister, his remonstrance failing, leaves you. He tells you that he cannot remain, be- 
cause you had created, by this act, hostile relations with his Government. At last you are in- 
formed that Mexico will receive a Commissioner to treat of this Texian boundary, if you will 
condescend to negotiate. Instead of sending a Commissioner to treat of that, the then only dif- 
ficult question between the two Republics, you send a lull Minister, and require that he shall be 
received as such. If he could not be styled Minister Plenipotentiary, and so accredited, why 
then we must fight, and not negotiate for a boundary. The then Mexican President, the repre- 
sentative of some faction only, was tottering to his tall. His Minister besought Mr. Slidell not 
to press his reception then. He was told that the excited feelings of the Mexican people were 
such that he must delay for a time. To this petition what answer is returned? You shall 
receive me now; you shall receive me as Minister and not as Commissioner; you shall receive 
me as though the most pacific relations existed between the two couutries. Tlius, and not oth- 
erwise, shall it be. Such was the haughty, imperious tone of Mr. Slidell, and he acted up only 
to the spirit of his instructions. Let any one peruse the corrospondence I have referred to, and 
he will see that I have truly represented its spirit, be its letter what it may. This is done under 
the instructions of a cabinet here, who represented themselves in our public documents, as sigh- 
ing, panting for peace ; as desiring, above all things, to treat these distracted, contemned Mexi- 
cans in sucn a way, that not the shadow of a complaint against us shall be seen. From this 
correspondence it' is perfectly clear, that if Mr. Slidell had been sent in the less ostentatious 
character of " Commissioner,'''' to treat of the Texas boundary, that treaties and not bullets 
would have adjusted the question. But this was not agreeable to the lofty conceptions of the 
President. He preferred a vigorous war to the tame process of peaceful adjustment. He now 
throws down the pen of the (fiplomat, and grasps the sword of the warrior. Your army, with 
brave old " Rough and Ready" at its head, is ordered to pass the Nueces, and advance to the east 
bank of the Rio Grande. I here, sir, between these two rivers, lies that slip of territory, that 
chapparal thicket, interspersed with Mexican haciendas, out of which this wasteful, desolating 
war arose. Was this territory beyond the river Nueces in the State of Texas ? 

Now I have said, that I would not state any disputable fact. It is known to every man who 
has looked into this subject, that a revolutionary government can claim no jurisdiction any- 
where when it has not defined and exercised its power with the sword. It was utterly indiffer- 
ent to Mexico and the world what legislative enactments Texas made. She extended her revo- 
lutionary government and her revolutionary dominion not one inch beyond the extent to which 
she had carried the power of Texas in opposition to the power of Mexico. 

It is therefore a mere question of fact ; and how will it be pretended that that country, lyin^ 
between the Nueces and the Del Norte, to which your army was ordered, and of which it took 
possession, was subject to Texian law and not Mexican law ? What did your General find 
there ? What did he write home? Do you hear of any trial by jury on the east bank of the 
Rio Grande— of Anglo-Saxons making cotton there with their negroes? No! You hear of 
Mexicans residing peacefully there, but fleeing from their cotton-fields at the approach of your 
army — no slaves, for it had been a decree of the Mexican Government, years ago, that no slaves 
should exist there. If there were a Texas population on the east bank of the Rio Grande, why 
did not General Taylor hear something of those Texians hailing the advent of the American 
army, coming to protect them from the ravages of the Mexicans, and the more murderous on- 
slaughts of the neighboring savages ? 

Do you hear any thing of that ? No ! On the contrary the population fled at the approach of 
your army. In God's name, I wish to know if it has come to this, that when an Arnerican ar- 
my goes to protect American citizens on American territory, they flee from it, as if from the 
most barbarous enemy ? Yet such is the ridiculous assumption of those who pretend that, on 
the east bank of the Rio Grande, where your arms took possession, there were Texas popula- 
tion, Texas power, Texas laws, and American United States power and law ! No, Mr. Presi- 
dent, when 1 see that stated in an Executive document, written by the finger of a President of 
the United States, and when you read in those documents, with which your tables groan, the ve- 
racious account of that noble old General^aylor, of his reception in that country, and of those 
men — to use the language of one of his officers — fleeing before the invaders ; when you compare 
these two documents together, is it not a biting sarcasm upon the sincerity of public men — a 
bitter satire upon the gravity of all public affairs ? 

Can it be, Mr. President," that the honest, generous. Christian people of the United States will 
give countenance to this egregious, palpable misrepresentation of fact — this bold falsification of 
history ? Shall it be written down in your public annals, when the world looking on and you 
yourselves know, that Mexico and not Texas, possessed this territory to which your armies 
marched ? As Mexico had never been dispossessed by Texan power, neither Texas nor your 
govornment had any more claim to it than you now nave to California, that other possession 
of Mexico over which your all-grasping avarice has already extended its remorseless dominion. 



8 

Mr. President, there is absent to-day a Senator from the other side of the House whose presence 
would aHbrdme, as it always does, but particularly on this occasion, a most singular gratiiica- 
tion. I allude to the Senator from Missouri who sits furthest from me, (Mr. Benton.) I remem- 
ber, Mr. President, he arose in this body and performed a great act of justice to himself and to 
his country — of justice to mankind, for all men are interested in the truths of history— when he 
declared it to be liis purpose, for the sake of the truth of history, to set right some gentlemen, on 
the other side of the House, in respect to the territory of Oregon, which then threatened to dis- 
turb the peace ol this Republic with the kingdom of Great Britain. I wish it had pleased him 
to have performed the same good offices on this occasion. 

I wish it had been so, if he could have found it consonant with his duty to his country, that 
now, while engaged with an enemy whom we have no reason to fear, as being ever able to check 
our progress or disturb our internal peace, for the sake of justice, as then he did for the sake of 
justice and the interest and peace of those two countries, England and America, he had come 
forward to settle the truth ol history in respect to the territorial boundary of Texas, which our 
President said was the Rio Bravo— the " Rio del Norte," as it is sometimes called. I express 
this wish for no purpose of taunting the Senator from Missouri, or leading him to believe tiiat 1 
would draw his name into the discussion for any other than the most sacred purposes which can 
animate the human bosom — that of having truth established ; for I really believe that that is true 
which the Senator from Michiiran stated yesterday, that the worst said in the Senate is, that much 
might be said on both sides ! i cannot view it in that way. Much may be said, much talk may 
be had on both sides on any question, but that this is a disputable matter about which a man 
could apply his mind for an hour and still be in doubt, is to me an inscrutable mystery. 

I wish to invoke the authority of the Senator from Missouri. When about to receive Texas 
in the United States he offered a resolution to this effect : 

"That the incorporation of the left bank of the Rio del Norte (Rio Grande) into the American Un- 
ion, by virtue of a treaty with Texas, comprehending, as he said incorporation would do, a part of 
the Mexican departments of New Me.xico, Chihuahua, Coahuila and Tamaulipas, WOULD BEAN 
ACT OF DIRECT AGGRESSION ON MEXICO, /or all the consequences of which the United States 
would stand responsible." 

I beg, Mr. President, to add to this another authority which I am sure will not be contradicted 
by any calling themselves Democrats. In the summer of 1844, Mr. Silas Wright, in an elabo- 
rate address delivered at Watertown, N. Y., said : 

"There is another subject on which I feel bound to speaK a word— I allude to the proposition to 
anne.\ Te.xas to the territory of this republic. I felt it my duty to vote as Senator and did vote 
against the ratification of the treaty for the annexation. I believed that the treaty, from the boundaries 
, that must be implied from it, if Mexico would not treat with us, embraced a country tu which Texas 
had no claim — over which she had never asserted jurisdiction, and which she had no right to cede. On 
this point I should give a brief explanation. 

"The treaty ceded Texas by name without an effort to describe a bovndary. The Congiess of Texas 
had passed an act declaring, by metes and bounds, what was Texas within their power and jurisdic- 
tion. It appeared to me then, if Mexico should tell us, "We don't know you — we have no treaty to 
make with you" — and we were left to take possession by force, we must take the country as Texas 
had ceded it to us — and in doing that or forfeiting our own honor, we must dv injustice to Mexico, and 
take a large portion of J^eic Mexico, the people of which hare never been under the jtirisdiction of 
Texas; this to me was an insurmountable barrier — J could not place the country in that position." 

How did your officers cpnsider this question? While in camp opposite to Matamoros, being 
then on the left bank of tiie Rio Grande, between the latter river and the Nueces, a most 
respectable officer writes thus to his friend in New York : 

"Camp opposite Matamoros, April 19, 1846. 
Our situation here is an extraordinary one. Right in the enemifs country, actually occupying their 
corn and cotton fielils, the people of the soil leaving their homes, and we. with a small handful of men, 
marching, with colors flying and dj urns beating, right under the guns of one of their principal cities, 
displaying the Star Spangled Banner as if in defiance, under their very nose, and they with an army 
twice our size, at least, sit quietly down, and make not the least resistance, not the first effort to 
drive the invaders off. There is no parallel to it." 

Sir, did this officer consider himself in Texas? Were they our own Texian citizens, who, in 
the language of the letter, "(i/d not make the first c fort to drive the inimdtrs off." If it liad been 
Texas there, would that State consider it invasion, or her people ^y from your standard? The 
people of the soil leaving their homes!" Who were those ^'people of the soil/" Sir, they were 
Mexicans, never conquered by Texas, and never subject to ner laws, and, therefore, never 
transferred by annexation, to your dominion; and, therefore lastly, your army, by order of the 
President, without the consent or advice of Congress, made war on Mexico, by invading her 
territory in April, 1846. 

Mr. President, the Senator from Missouri was right. "The incorporation of the left bank of 
the Rio Grande into the American Union," was "an act of direct aggression on Mexico," as his 
resolution most truthfully alleged. We, or at least the President, has attempted to incorporate 
the left bank of tiie Rio del Norte, or the Rio Grande, into the Union, and the consequence, the 
legitimate consequence, war has come upon us. The President, in his message, asserts the 
boundary of Texas to be the Rio Grande. The Senator from Missouri asserts the left bank of 
that river to be Mexican territory. Sir, it is not for me, who stand here an humble man, who 
pretend, not to be one of those Pharisees who know all the law and obey it, but, who, like the 
poor Publif-an, would stand afar off' and smite my breast, and say God be merciful to me a poor 
Whig. When the annointud High Priests in the Temple of Democracy differ on a point of fact, 
it is not for me to decide between them. Is it for me to say that the Senator from Missouri was 



iffnorant and the President omniscient? Is it for me to say that the President was right and the 
^nator from Missouri wrong? If it were true that Texian laws hud been, since 1836, as the 
President's action seems to declare, how happened it, that when General Taylor went to Point 
Isabel, the people set fire to their houses and Hed the place? And how did it happen that there 
was a custom house there, there, in Texas, as you now allege. A Mexican custom house in 
Texas, where, ever since 1836, and for one whole year after the State of Texas became yours, a 
Mexican officer collected taxes of all who traded there, and paid these duties into the Mexican 
treasury! Sir, is it credible that this State of Texas allowed Mexican laws and Mexican power 
to exist within her borders for seven years after her independence? I should think a people so 
prompt to fight for their rights, might have burned some powder for the expulsion of Mexican 
usurpers from Texian territory. Sir, the history of this country is full of anomalies and contra- 
dictions. What a patriotic, harmonious people! When Taylor comes to protect them, they 
fire their dwellings and fly! When you come in peace, bristling in arms for protection only, 
your eagle spreading its wings to shield from harm all American citizens — what then happens? 
Why, according to your own account, these Anglo-Saxon Republicans are so terrified at the 
sight of their country's flag, that they abandon their homes, and retreat before vour army, as if 
some Nomad tribe had wandered thither to enslave their families and plunder their estates! 

AH this mass of undeniable fact, known even to the careless reader of the public prints, is so 
utterly at war with the studiously contrived statements in your cabinet documents, that I do 
not wonder at all, that an amiable national pride, however misplaced here, has prevented 
hitherto, a thorough and fearless investigation of their truth. Nor, sir, would I probe this feculent 
mass of misrepresentation, had I not been compelled to it, in defence of votes which I was 
obliged to record here, within the last ten days. Sir, with my opinions as to facts connected 
with this subject, and my deductions, unavoidable from them, I should have been unworthy the 
high-souled State I represent, had I voted men and money to prosecute further a war com- 
menced, as it now appears, in aggression, and carried on by repetition only of the original 
wrong. Am I mistaken in this? If I am, I shall hold him the dearest friend I can own in any 
relation oi life, who shall show me my error. If I am wrong in this question of fact, show me 
how I err, and gladly will I retrace my steps— satisfy me that my country was in peaceful and 
rightful possession between the Nueces and Rio Grande, when General Taylor's armv was 
ordered there— show me that at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palmas, blood was shed on Amer- 
ican soil, in American possession, and then for the defence of that possession — I will vote away 
the last dollar that power can wring from the people, and send every man able to bear a musket, 
to the ranks of war. But until I shall be thus convinced, duty to myself, to truth, to conscience, 
to public justice, requires that I persist in every lawful opposition to this war. 

While the American President can command the army, thank heaven I can command the 
purse. While the President, under the penalty of death, can command your officers to proceed, 
I can tell them to come back, or the President can supply them as he may. He shall have no 
funds from me in the prosecution of a war which I cannot approve. That I conceive to be the 
duty of a Senator. I am not mistaken in that. If it be my duty to grant whatever the President 
demands, for what am I here? Have I no will upon the subject? Is it not placed at my discre- 
tion, understanding, judgment? Have an American Senate and House of Representatives 
nothing to do but ol)ey the bidding of the President, as the army he commands is compelled to 
obey under penalty of death? No ! The Representatives of the Sovereign people and Sovereign 
States were never elected for such purposes as that. 

Have Senators reflected on the great power which the command of armies in war confers 
upon any one, but especially on him who is at once the civil and military chief of the Govern- 
ment? It is very well that we should look back to see how the friends of popular rights 
regarded this subject in former times. Prior to the revolution of 1688 in England, all grants of 
nionay by Parliament were general. Specific appropriations before that period were unknown. 
The King could, out of the general revenues, appropriate any or all of them to any war, or 
other object, as best suited his own unrestrained wishes. Hence, in the last struggle with the 
first Charles, the Parliament insisted that he should yield up the command of the army raised 
to quell the Irish rebellion, to such person as Parliament should choose. The men of that day 
saw that with the unrestricted control of revenue, and the power to name the commander of 
the army, the King was master of the liberties of the people. Wherefore, Charles, after he had 
yielded up almost every other kingly prerogative, was, (in order to secure Parliament and the 
people against military rule,) reouired to give up the command of the forces. It was his refusal 
to do this, that brought his head to the block. "Give up the command of the army!" was the 
last imperitive demand of the foes of arbitrary power then. What was the repW of that 
unhappy representative of the doomed race of the Stuarts? "Not for an hour, by God," was 
the stern answer. Wentworth had always advised his royal master never to yield up the right 
to command the army; such too was the counsel of the Queen, whose notions of kingly jtower 
were all fashioned after the most despotic models. This power over the army by our Consti- 
tution is conceded to our King. Give him money at his will, as we are told we must, and you 
have set up in this Republic just such a tyrant as him, against whom the friends of English 
liberty were compelled to wage war. It was a hard necessity, but still it was demanded as the 
only security for any reasonable measure of public liberty. Such men as Holt and Somers, had 
liot yet taught the people of England, the secret of controlling arbitrary povyer by specific 
approprintions- of money, and withholding these, when the King proclaimed his intention, to 
use the jirant for any purpose, not approved by the Commons, the true representatives of popular 
rights ir, E igland. 

When in 1688, this doctrine of specific appropriation became a part of the British constitution, 
the King could safely be trusted with the control of the army. If war is made there by the 
Crown, and the Commons do not approve of it, refusal to grant suppli 's is the easy remedy — 
one, too, which renders it impossible for a king of England to carry forward any war which 



10 

may be displeasing to the English people. Yes, sir, in England, since 1688, it has not been in 
the power of a British Sovereign to do that, which in your boasted Republic, an American 
President, under the auspices ot what you call Democracy, has done — make war witliout 
consent ot the legislative power. In England supplies are at once refused, if Parliament does 
not approve the objects of the war. Here, we are told, we must not look to the objects of the 
war: being in Ike war — made by the President — we must help him to fight it out, should it even 
please hitn to carry it to the utter extermination of the Mexican race. Sir, I believe it must 
proceed to this shocking extreme, if you are by war, to "conquer a peace." Here then is your 
condition. The President involves you in war without your consent. Being in such a war, 
it is demanded as a duty, that we grant men and money to carry it on. The President tells us 
he shall prosecute this war, till Mexico pays us, or agrees to pay us, all its expenses. I am not 
willing to scourge Mexico thus; and the only means left me is to say to the commander-in-chief, 
"Call home vour army — I will feed and clothe it no longer — you have whipped Mexico in three 
pitched battles — this is revenge enough — this is punishment enough." 

The President has said he does not expect to hold Mexican territory by conquest. Why then 
conquer it? Why waste thousands of lives and millions of money fortifying towns and cre- 
atine governments, if, at the end of the war, you retire from the graves of your soldiers and the 
desolated country of your foes, only to get money from Mexiqo for the expense of all your toil 
and sacritice? Who ever heard, since Cliristianity was propagated amongst men, of a nation 
taxing its people, enlisting its young men, and marching offtwo thousand miles to fi"ht a 
people merely to be paid for it in money ! What is this but hunting a market for blood, selling 
the lives of your young nien, marching them in regiments to be slaughtered and paid for, like 
oxen and brute beasts? Sir, this is, when stripped naked, that atrocious idea first promulgated 
in the President's message and now advocated here, of fighting on till we can get our indemnity 
for the past as well as the present slaughter. We have chastised Mexico, and if it were worth 
while to do so, we have I dare say, satished the world that we can fight. What now? Why,, 
the mothers of America are asked to send another of their sons to blow out the brains of 




fighting for indemnity, and this under the equally absurd and hypocritical pretence of securing 
an honorable peace. An honorable peace ! If you have accomplished the objects of the war, 
(if indeed you had an object which you dare to avow,) cease to fight, and you will have peace. 
Conquer your insane love of false glory, and you will "conquer a peace." Sir, if your com- 
mander-in-chief will not do this, I will endeavor to compel him, and as I find no other means, 
I shall refuse supplies — without the money of the people, he cannot go further. He asks me for 
that money; I wish him to bring your armies home, to cease shedding blood for money ; if he 
refuses, I will refuse supplies, and then I know he must, he will cease his further sale of the 
lives of my countrymen. May we not, oufrht we not now to do this? I can hear no reason 
why we should not, except this, it is said that we are in war, wrongfully it may be, but, being 
in, the President is responsible, and we must give him the means he requires! He responsible ! 
Sir, we, we are responsible, if having the power to stay this plague we refuse to do so. When 
it shall be so— when the American Senate and the American House of Representatives can 
Btoop from their high position, and yield a dumb compliance with the behests of a President, 
who is for the time being commander of your army; when they will open the treasury with 
one hand, and the veins of all the soldiers in the land with the other, merely because the 
President commands, then, sir, it matters little how soon some Cromwell shall come into this 
Hall and say, "the Lord hath no further need of you here." When we fail to do the work 
"whereunto we were sent," we shall be, we ought to be removed, and give place to others who 
will. The fate of the barren fig tree will be ours— Christ cursed it and it withered. 

Mr. President, I dismiss this branch of the subject and beg the indulgence of the Senate to 
Bome reflections on the particular bill now under consideration. I voted for a bill somewhat 
like the present at the last session — our army was then in the neighborhood of our line. I then 
hoped that the President did sincerely desire a peace. Our army had not then penetrated far into 
Me_xico, and I did hope that with the two millions then proposed, we might get peace, and avoid 
thejslaughter, the shame, the crime, of an aggressive, unprovoked war. But now you have overrun 
half of Mexico, you have exasperated and irritated her people, you claim indemnity for all ex- 
penses incurred in doing this mischief, and boldly ask her to give up New Mexico and California; 
and, as a bribe to her patriotism, seizing on her property, you offer three millions to pay the 
soldiers she has called out to repel your invasion, on condition that she will give up to you at 
least one-third of her whole territory. This is the modest — I should say, the monstrous proposi- 
tion now before us, as explained" by the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, (Mr. 
Sevier) who reported the bill. I cannot now give my assent to this. 

But sir, I do not believe you will succeed. I am not informed of your prospects of success 
with this measure of peace. The Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Relations tells us that 
he has every reason to believe that peace can be obtained if we grant this appropriation. What 
reason have you, Mr. Chairman, for that opinion ? " Facts which I cannot disclose to yon- 
correspondence which it would be improper to name here— facts which I know, but which you 
are not permitted to know, have satisfied the Committee, that peace may be purchased, if you 
will but grant these three millions of dollars." Now, Mr. President, I wish to know if I am re- 
quired to act upon such opinions of the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, 
formed upon facts which he refuses to disclose to me ? No ! I must know the facts before I can 
form my judgment. But I am to take it for granted that there must be some prospect of an end 
to this dreadful war — for it is a dreadful war, being as I believe in my conscience it is, an unjust 
war. Is it possible that for three millions you can purchase a peace with Mexico ? How ? — 
By the purchase of California ? Mr. President, I know not what facts the Chairman of the 



11 

Committee on Foreign Affairs may have had access to. I know not what secret agents have 
been whispering into the ears of the authorities of Mexico ; but of one thing I am certain, that 
by a cession of California and New Mexico you never can purchase a peace with her. 

You may wrest provinces from Mexico by war — you may hold them by the right of the 
strongest — you may rob her, but a treaty ot peace to that effect with the people of Mexico, 
lejimately and freely made, you never will have! I thank God that it is- so, as well for the 
sake of the Mexican people as ourselves, for unlike the Senator from Alabama, (Mr. Bagby,) I 
do not value the life of a citizen of the United States above the lives of an hundred tl.ousand 
Mexican women and children— a rather cold sort of philanthropy in my judgement. For the 
sake of Mexico, then, as well as our own country, I rejoice that it is an impossibility, that you 
can obtain by treaty from her those territories, under the existing state of things. 

I am somewhat at a loss to know, on what plan of operations gentlemen having charge of this 
war intend to proceed. We hear much said of the terror of your arms. The affrighted Mexican, 
it is said, when you shall have drenched his country in blood, will sue for peace, and thus ;ou will 
indeed '• conquer peace." This is the heroic and savage tone in which we have heretofore been 
lectured by our friends on the other side of the chamber, especially by the Senator from Michigan, 
(Gen. Cass.) But suddenly the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations comes to ua 
with the smooth phrase of" diplomacy, made potent by the gentle suasion of gold. The Chair- 
man of the Committee on Military Affairs calls for thirty millions of money and ten thousand 
regular troops ; these we are assured shall " conquer peace," if the obstinate Celt refuses to treat 
till we shall whip him in another field of blood. What a delightful scene in the 19th century of 
the Christian era ? What an interesting sif^ht to see these two representatives of war ani peace 
movino; in grand procession through the Halls of the Montezumas ! The Senator from Michigan, 
(Gen. Cass,) red with the blood of recent slaughter, the gory spear of Achilles in his hand, and 
the hoarse clarion of war in his mouth, blowing a blast " so loud and deep" that the sleeping 
echoes of the lofty Cordilleras start from their caverns and return the sound, till every ear from 
Panama to Santa Fe is deafened with the roar. By his side, with " modest mein and downcast 
look," comes the Senator from Arkansas, (Mr. Sevier,) covered from head to foot with a 
gorgeous robe, glittering and embossed with three millions of shining gold, putting to shanie 
" the wealth of^Ormus or of Ind." The olive of Minerva graces his brow, in his right hand is 
the delicate Rebeck, from which are breathed in Lydian measures, notes '• that tell ol naught 
but love and peace." I fear very much, you will scarcely be able to explain to the simple, 
savage mind of the half-civilized Mexicans, the puzzling dualism of this scene, at once gurgeous 
and grotesque. Sir, I scarcely understand the meaning of all this myself. If we are to vindicate 
our rights by battles — in bloody fields of war — let us do it. If that is not the plan, why thru let ug 
call back our armies into our own territory, and propose a treaty with Mexico, based upon the pro- 
position that money is better for her and land is better for us. Thus we can treat Mexico like 
an equal, and do honor to ourselves. But what is it you ask ? You have taken from Mexico 
one-fourthof her territory, and you now propose to run a line comprehending about another 
third, and for what? I ask, Mr. President, for what ? What has Mexico got from you, for 
parting with two-thirds of her domain ? She has given you ample redress for every injury of 
which you have complained. She has submitted to the award of your Commissioner and up to 
the time of the rupture with Texas faithfully paid it. And for all that she has lost, (not through 
or by you, but which loss has been your gain,) what requital do we, her strong, rich and robust 
neighbor make ■? Do we send our missionaries there "to point the way to heaven? Or do 
we send the schoolmaster to pour day-light into her dark places, to aid her infant strength to 
conquer freedom, and reap the fruit of independence herself alone had won? No, no, none of 
this do we. But we send regiments, storm towns, and our colonels prate of liberty in tl,.'. midst 
of the solitudes their ravages have made. They proclaim the empty forms of social compact to 
a people, bleeding and maimed with wounds received in defending their hearth stones igainst 
the invasion of Uiese very men who shoot them down, and then exhort them to be free. Your 
chaplains of the navy throw aside the new Testament and seize a bill of rights. The Rev. 
Don Walter Colton I see, abandons the sermon on the mount, and betakes himself to Black- 
stone antl Kent, and is elected a Justice of the Peace ! He takes military possession ot some 
town in California, and instead of teaching the plan of the atonement and the way to solvation 
to the poor, ignorant Celt, he presents Colt's pistol to his ear, and calls on him to take ".rial by 
jury and habeas corpus," or nine bullets in his head. Oh ! Mr. President, are you not tie lights 
of the earth, if not its salt? You, you are indeed opening the eyes of the blind in Mexic i, with 
a most emphatic and exoteric power. Sir, if all this were not a sad, mournful truth, ii would 
be the very " ne plus ultra" of the ridiculous. 

But, sir, let us see what, as the Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Relations explains it, 
we are to get by the combined processes of conquest and treaty. 

What is the territory, Mr. President, which you propose to wrest from Mexico ? It is con- 
eecrated to the heart of the Mexican by many a well-fought oattle, with his old Castilian master' 
His Bunker Hills and Saratogas andVorktowns are there! The Mexican can say, " There I 
bled for liberty ! and shall I surrender that consecrated home of my affections to the Anglo-Saxon 
invaders ? What do they want with it ? They have Texas already. They have po: sessed 
themselves of the territory between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. What else do they want ? 
To what shall I point my children as memorials of that independence, which I bequeath t.; them, 
when those battle-fields shall have passed from my possession?" 

Sir, had one come and demanded Bunker Hill of the people of Massachusetts, had Enixland'a 
Lion ever showed himself there, is there a man over 13 and under 90 who would not hdvo been 
ready to meet him — is there a river on this Continent that would not have run red with 'I'ood — 
is there a field but would have been piled high with the unburied bones of slaughtered Anic ricaria 
before these consecrated battle fields of liberty should have been wrested from us ? Bat thia 
same American goes into a sister Republic, and says to poor, weak Mexico, " Give up your 



12 

/territory — you are unworthy to possess it — I have got one half already — all I ask of you is to 
give up the other !" England might as well in the circumstances I nave described, have come 
and demanded of us '• Give up the Atlantic slope — give up this trifling territory from the 
Alleghany Mountains to the sea ; it is only from Maine to St. Mary's — only about one-third of 
^ your Republic, and the' least interesting uortion of it." What would be the response ? They 
: would say, we must give this up to John Bull. Why? " He wants room." The Senator from 
y Michigan sa)-s he ma-st have this. Why, my worthy Christian brother, on what principle of 
justice ( ■' 1 want room !" 

Sir, look at this preuj.nce of want of room. With twenty millions of people you have about 
one thousand niiliions of acres of land, inviting settlement by every conceivable argument — 
bringing them down to a quarter of a dollar an acre, and allowing every man to squat where he 
pleases. But the Senator from Michigan says we will be two hundred millions in a few years, 
and we want room. If I were a Mexican I would tell you, " Have you not room in your own 
country to bury your dead men ? If you come into mine we will greet you with bloody hands, 
and welcome you to hospitable graves." 

» Why, suys the Chairman of this Committee of Foreign Relations, it is the most reasonable 
thing in the world i We ought to have the Bay of San Francisco. Why ? Because it is the 
best harbor on the Pacific ! It has been my fortune, Mr. President, to have practised a good deal 
in ci imiiiai c-ouvt» in the course of my life, but I never yet heard a thief, arrainged for stealing 
a hor^e, plead that it was the best horse that he could find in the country ! We want California. 
What for? Why, says the Senator from Michigan, we will have it ; and the Senator from 
South Carolina, with a very mistaken view, I think, of policy, — says, you can't keep our people 
froi-i going there. I don't desire to prevent them. Let them go and seek their happiness in 
whatever country or iliiue it please them. 

All I uik of ttiem is, not to require this government to protect them with that banner con- 
secrated to war waged for principles — eternal, enduring truth. Sir, it is not meet that our old 
flag should throw its [notecting folds over expeditions lor lucre or for land. But you still say 
you want room for your people. This has been the plea of every robber-chief from Nimrod to 
the present hour. 1 dare say when Tamerlane descended from his throne built of seventy 
thousand human skulls, and marched his ferocious battalions to further slaughter, I dare say he 
said, " I want room." Bajazet was another gentleman of kindred tastes and wants with us 
Anglo Sa.vons — he "wanted room." Ale.xander, too, the mighty "Macedonian madman," 
when he wandered with his Greeks to the plains of India, and fought a bloody battle on the 
very ground where recently England and the Sikhs engaged in strife for " room," was no, doubt 
in quest of some Caliiornia there. Many a Monterey nad he to storm, to get " room." Sir, he 
made quite as much of that sort of history as you ever will. Mr. President, do you remember 
the last chapter in that history ! It is soon read. Oh, I wish we could but understand its moral. 
Amnion's son, (so was Alexander named,) after all his victories, died drunk in Babylon ! The 
vast enijure ho conquered to " get room," became the prey of the Generals he had trained ; it 
was disparted, torn to pieces, and so ended. Sir, there is a very significant appendi.x ; it is this. 
The descendants of the Greeks, of Alexander's (ireeks, are now governed by a descendant of 
Attilla ! Mr. Presideut, while we are fighting for room, let us ponder deeply tins appendix. I 
was soms\yhal amazed the other day, to hear the Senator from Michigan declare that Europe 
had quite forgotten us, till these battles waked them up. I suppose the Senator ieels grateful to 
the Pre--ident for " waking up" Europe. Does the President, who is, I hope, read in civic as 
well as military lore, remember the saying of one who had pondered upon history long, long too 
upon mri'i, his nature atid true destiny ? Montesijuieu did not think highly of this way of 
" wakingVip." " Hapiiy," says he, " is that nation wtiose annals are tiresome." 

The Senator from Michigan has a different view of this. He thinks that a nation is not dis- 
tinguished lintil it is distinguished in war. He fears that the slumbering faculties of Europe, 
have noi been able to ascertain, that there are twenty millions of Anglo Saxons here — making 
railroads and canals, and speeding all the arts of peace to the utmost accomplishment of the 
most rellned civilization! They do not know it! And what is the wonderful expedient 
which t!ii.i Democratic method of making hi.story would adopt in order to make us known I 
Storming cities, dcsolr.ting peaceful hajipy homes, shooting men — aye sir, such is war — and 
shooting wotnen too. 

Sir, I have read in some account of your battle of Monterey, of a lovely Mexican girl, who, 
with the bcnevolcnco of an angel in her bosom, and the robust courage of a hero in her heart, 
was busily engaged dtuing the bloody conflict, amid the crash of falfing houses, the groans of 
the dying and the wild shriek of battle, in carrying water to slake the burning thirst of the 
wounded of either host. While bending over a wounded American soldier, a ctuinon ball struck 
her and blew her to. atoms ! Sir, I do not charge my brave, generous-hearted countrymen who 
fought that fight with this. No, no — we who send them, we who know that scenes like this, 
which might send tears of sorrow "down Pluto's iron cheek," are the invariable, inevitable 
attendaiiis on war, v>p are accountable for this ; and this— this is the way we are to be made 
kno .vn to Euro;.>e. Tiiis — t/iis is to be the undying renown of free Republican America ! " She 
has siortned a city — killed many of its inhabitants of both sexes — she has room !" So it will 
read. Sir, if this were our only history, then may God of his mercy grant that its volume may 
I speedily come to a close. 

Why is it, sir, that we of the United States, a people of yesterday, compared with the older 
nations of the world, should be waging war for territory, for " room ?" Look at your coutitry, 
extending from the Alleghany Mountains to the Pacifii-. Ocean, capable itself of sustaining in 
comfort a larger pc'puiation than will be in thr- whole Union, for one hundred years to come. 
Over this vati cxpan,-ro of territory your population is now so sparse, that I believe we provided 
at the la-it ses.d.'U, a re:;imeiit of mounted men to guard the mail, from the frontier of Missouri 
to the mouth of the Columbia ; and yet you persist in the ridiculous assertion, " I want room." 



13 

One would imagine from the frequent reiteration of the complaint, that you had a bursting, 
teeming population, whose energy was paralized, whose enterprise was crushed, for want oi 
space. Why should we be so weak or wicked as to offer this idle apology, for ravaging a 
neighboring republic ? It will impose on no one at home or abroad. 

Do we not know, Mr. President, that it is a law, never to be repealed, that falsehood shall bo 
ihort lived ? Was it not ordained of old, that truth only shall abide forever ? Whatever we 
may say to day, or whatever we may write in our books, the stern tribunal of history will re- 
view it all, detect falsehood, and bring us to judgement before that posterity, which aliail bless or 
curse us, as we may act now, wisely or otherwise. We may hide in the grave, (which awaits 
us all,) in vain ; we may hope there, like the foolish bird that hides its head in the sand, in vain 
belief that its body is not seen, yet even there, this preposterous excuse of want of " room," 
shall be laid bare, and the quick-coming future will decide, that it was a hypocriticnl pretence, 
under which we sought to conceal the avarice, which prompted us to covet and to seize by force, 
that which was not ours. 

Mr. President, this uneasy desire to augment our territory, has depraved the moral sense, and 
blunted the otherwise keen sagacity of our people. What has been the fate of all nations who 
have acted upon the idea, that they must advance ! Our young orators cherish this notion with" 
a fervid, but fatally mistaken zeal. They call it by the mysterious name of " destiny." " Our 
destiny," they say is onward, and hence they argue, with ready sopl.'istry, the propriety of 
seizing upon any territory and any people, that may lay in the way of our " fated" advance. 
Recently these Progressives have grown classical; some assiduous student of antiijuities has 
helped them to a patron snint. They have wandered back into the desolated Pantheon, and 
there, amongst the Polytheistic relics of that " pale mother of dead empires," they have found a 
God whom these Romans, centuries gone by, baptized " Terminus." 

Sir, I have heard much and read somewhat of this gentleman Terminus. Alexander, of 
whom I have spoken, was a devotee of this divinity. We have seen the end of him and his 
empire. It was said to be an attribute of this God that he must always advance, and never re- 
cede. So both republican and imperial Rome believed. It was, as they said, their destiny. — 
And for a while it did seem to be even so. Roman Terminus did advance. Under the eagles 
of Rome he was carried from his home on the Tiber, to the furthest East on one hand, and to 
the far West, amongst th.T then barbarous tribes of western Europe, on the other. But at 
length the time came, when retributive justice had become " a destiny." The despised Gaul 
calls out the contemned Goth, and Attilla with his Huns, answers back the battle shout to both. 
The " blue-eyed nations of the North," in succession or united, pour forth their countless hosts 
of warriors upon Rome and Rome's always-advancing God Terminus. And now the battle-axe 
of the barbarian strikes down the conquering eagle ot Rome. Terminus at last recede?, slowly 
at first, but finally he is driven to Rome, and from Rome to Byzantium. Whoever would know 
the further fate of this Roman Deity, so recently taken under the patronage of Arrerican 
Democracy, may find ample gratification of his curiosity, in the luminous pages of Gibbon's 
" Decline and Fall." Such will find, that Rome thought as you now think, it was her destiny 
to conquer provinces and nations, and no doubt she sometimes said as you say, " I will conquer 
a peace." And where now is she, the Mistress of the World ? The spider weaves his web in 
her palaces, the owl sings his watch-song in her towers. Teutonic power now lords ii over the 
servile remnant, the miserable memento of old and once omnipotent Rome. Sad, very sad, are 
the lessons which time has written for us. Through and in tnem all, I see nothing but the in- 
flexible execution of that old law, which ordains as eternal, that cardinal rule^' Thou shalt not 
covet thy neighbor's goods, nor any thins which is his." Since I have lately heard so much 
about the dismemberment of Mexico, I nave looked back to see how, in the course of events, 
which some call " Providence," it has fared with other nations, who engaged in this work of 
dismemberment. I see that in the latter half of the eighteenth century, three powerful nations, 
Russia, Austria and Prussia, united in the dismemberment of Poland. They said, too, as you 
say, " it is our destiny." They " wanted room." Doubtless each of these thought, with his 
share of Poland, his power was too strong ever to fear invasion, or even insult. One had his 
California, another his New Mexico, and the third his Vera Cruz. Did they remain untouched 
and incapable of harm ? Alas! No — far, very far, from it. Retributive justice must i'ulfil its 
destiny too. A very few years pass off, and we hear of a new man, a Coraican lieutenant, the 
self-named " armed, soldier of Democracy," Napoleon. He ravages Austria, covers her land 
with blood, drives the Northern Csesar from his captial, and sleeps in his palace. Austria may 
now remember how her power trampled upon Poland. Did she not pay dear, very dear, for her 
California ? 

But has Prussia no atonement to make ? You see this same Napoleon, the blind instrument 
of Providence, at work there. The thunders of his cannon at Jena proclaim the work of retri- 
bution for Poland's wrongs; and the successors of the Great Frederick, the drill-sergeant of 
Europe, are seen flying across the sandy plain that surround their capitol, right glad if they 
may escape captivity or death. But how fares it with the Autocrat of Russia ? Is he secure in 
his share of the spoils of Poland ? No. Suddenly we see.„.«ip^ six hundred thousand armed'men 
marching to Moscow. Does his Vera Cruz protect him now ? Far from it. Blood, slaughter, 
desolation spread abroad over the land, and finally the conflagration of the old commercial me- 
tropolis of Russia, closes the retribution she must pay for her share in the dismembevment of 
her weak and impotent neiglibor. Mr. President, a mind more prone to look tor the judgments 
of Heaven in the doings of -nc.n than mine, cannot fail in this to see the Providence of God. — 
When Moscow burned it seemed as if the earth was lighted uo, that the Nations mighf behold 
the scene. As that mighty sea of fire gathered and heaved and rolled upv/ards, and ye: higher, 
till its flames licked the stars, and fired the whole Heavens, it did seem ns tfiough the God of 
the Nations was writing in characters of flame on the front of his throne, that doom flat shall 
fall upon the strong nation, which tramples in scorn upon the weak. And what fortune awaits 



f 



/ 



14 

f Him, the appointed executor of this work, when it was all done ? He, too, conceived the notion 
( that his destiny pointed onward to universal dominion. France was too small — Europe, he 
I thouglit,shoulQ bow down before him. But as soon as this idea took possession of his soul, he, 
too, becomes powerless. His Terminus must recede too. Right there, where he witnessed the 
humiliaiion, and doubtless meditated the subjugation of Russia, He who holds the winds in His 
list, gathered the snows of the North and blew them upon his six hundred thousand men; they 
fled — they froze — they perished. And now the mighty Napoleon, who had resolved on universal 
dominion, he too is summoned to answer for the violation of that ancient law, " thou shalt not 
covet any thing which is tiiy neighbor's." How is the mighty fallen. He, beneath whose proud 
footstep Europe trembled, he is now an exile at Elba, and now hnally a prisoner on the rocks of 
St. Helena, and there on a barren island, in an unfrequented sea, in the crater of an extinguish- 
ed volcano, iAere is the death-bed of the mighty conqueror. All his annexations have come to 
that ! His last hour is now come, and he, the man of destiny, he who had rocked the world as 
if with the throes of an earthquake, is now powerless, still — even as the beggar, so he died. On 
the wings of a tempest that raged with unwonted fury, up to the throne of the only Power that 
controlled him while he lived, went the fiery soul of that wonderful warrior, another witness to 
the existence of that eternal decree, that they who do not rule in righteousness, shall perish from 
the earth. He has found " room" at last. And France, she too has found " room." Her 
" eagles" now no longer scream along the banks of the Danube, the Po, and the Borysthenest 
They hav;3 returned home, to their old eyre, between the Alps, the Rhine, and the Pyrinees ; so 
shall it be with yours. You may carry them to the loftiest peaks of the Corderillas, they may 
wave with insolent triumph in the Halls of the Montezumas, the armed men of Mexico may 
quail before them, but the weakest hand in Mexico, uplifted in prayer to the God of Justice, may 
call down against you a Power, in the presence of which, the iron hearts of your warriors shall 
be turned into ashes. 

Mr. President, if the history of our race has established any truth, it is but a confirmation of 
what is written, " the way of the transgressor is hard." Inordinate ambition, wantoning in 
power, and spurning the humble maxims of justice has — ^ever has — and ever shall end in ruin. 
Strength cannot always trample upon weakness — the humble shall be exalted— the bowed down 
will at length be lifted up. It is by faith in the law of strict justice, and the practice of its pre- 
cepts, that nations alone can be saved. All the annals of the human race, sacred and profane, 
are written over with this great truth, in characters of living light. It is my fear, my fixed belief, 
that in this invasion, this war with Mexico, we have forgotten this vital truth. Why is it, that 
we have been drawn into this whirlpool of war ? How clear and strong was the light that shone 
apon the path of duty a year ago ? The last disturbing question with England was settled— our 

f)ower extended its peaceful sway from the Atlantic to the Pacific ; from the Alleghanies we 
ooked out upon Europe, and from the tops of the Stony Mountains we could descry the shores 
of. Asia ; a rich commerce with all the nations of Europe poured wealth and abundance into our 
lap on t!ie Atlantic side, while an unoccupied commerce of three hundred millions of Asiatics 
waited on the Pacific for our enterprise to come and pos.sess it. One hundred millions of dollars 
will be wasted in this fruitless war. Had this money of the people been expended in making a 
railroad from your Northern Lakes to the Pacific, as one of your citizens has begged of you in 
vain, you would have made a hifjhway for the world between Asia and Europe. Your capitol 
then would be within thirty or forty days travel of any and every point on the map of the civil- 
ized world. Throith this great artery of trade, you would have earned through the heart of 
your own country, the teas of China, and the spices of India, to the markets of England and 
France. Why, why, Mr. President, did we abandon the enterprises of peace, and betake our- 
selves to the barbarous achievments of war ? Why did we " forsake this fair and fertile field to 
batten on that moor." 

But, Mr. President, if further acquisition of territory is to be the result either of conquest or 
treaty, tnen I scarcely know which should be preferred — eternal war with Mexico or the hazards 
of internal commotion at home, which last I fear may come, if another province is to be added 
to our territory. There is one topic connected with this subject which I tremble when I approach, 
and yet I cannot forbear to notice it. It meets you in every step you take, it threatens you 
which ..way soever you go, in the prosecution of this war. I allude to the question of Slavery. 
Opposition to its further extension, it must be obvious to every one, is a deeply rooted determi- 
nation with men of all parties, in what we call the non-Slave-holding States. New York, 
Pennsylvania, and Ohio, three of the most powerful, have already sent their legislative instruc- 
tions here; so it will be, I doubt not, in all the rest. It is vain now to speculate about the reasons 
for this. Gentlemen of the South may call it prejudice, passion, hypocrisy, fanaticism. I shall 
not dispute with them now on that point. The great fact that it is so, and not otherwise, ia 
what it concerns us to know. You nor I cannot alter or change this opinion if we would. 
These people only say, we will not, cannot consent that you shaR carry slavery where it does 
not already exist. They do not seek to disturb you in that institution as it exists in your States, 
Enjoy it if you will, and as you will. This is their language, this their determination. How is 
it in the South ? Can'it be expected that they should expend in common their blood and their 
treasure, in the acquisition of immense territory, and then willingly forego the right to carry 
thither their slaves and inhabit the conquered country if they please to do so ? Sir, I know the 
feelings and opinions of the South too well to calculate on this. Nay, I believe they would even 
contend to any extremity for the mere right, had they no wish to exert it. I believe (and I con* 
fess I t/emble when the conviction presses upon me) that there is equal obstinacy on both 
sides of this fearful question. If, then, we per.^ist in war, which, if it terminate in anything 
short of a mere wanton waste of blood as well as money, must end (as this bill proposes) in the 
acquisition of territory to which at once this controversy must attach — this bill would seem to 
be nothing lees than a bill to produce internal commotion. Should we prosecute this war 
another moment, or expend one dollar in the purchase or conquest of a single acre of Mexican 



15 

land, the North and the South are brought into collision on a point where neither will yield. 
Who can foresee or foretel the result ? Who so bold or reckless as to look such a conflict in the 
face unmoved ? I do not envy the heart of him who can realize the possibility of such a conflict 
without emotions too painful to be endured. Why then shall we, the representatives of the 
Sovereign States of this Union — the chosen guardians of tliis confederated Republic, why should 
we precipitate this fearful struggle, by continuing a war the results of which must be to Ibrce us 
at once upon it? Sir, rightly considered, this is treason, treason to the Union, treason to the 
dearest interests, the loftiest aspirations, the most cherished hopes of our constituents. It is a 
crime to risk the possibility of such a contest. It is a crime of such infernal hue, that every other 
in the catalogue of iniquity, when compared with it whitens into virtue. Oh, Mr. President, it 
does seem to me, if Hell itself could yawn, and vomit up the fiends that inhabit its penal abodes, 
commissioned to disturb the harmony of this world, and dash the fairest prospect of happiness 
that ever allured the hopes of men, tne first step in the consummation of this diabolical purpose 
would be, to light up the fires of internal war, and plunge the sister States of this Union into 
the bottomless gulf of civil strife. We stand this day on the crumbling brink of that gulf— we 
see its bloody eddies wheeling and boiling before us — shall we not pause before it be too latej? 
How plain again is here the path, I may add die only way of duty, of prudence, of true patri- 
otism. Let us abandon all idea of acquiring further territory, and by consequence cease at once 
to prosecute this war. Let us call home our armies, and bring them at once within our own 
acknowledged limits. Show ?vIexico that you are sincere when you say you desire nothing by 
conquest. She has learned that she cannot encounter you in war, and if she had not, she is too 
wea\ to disturb you here. Tender her peace, and my life on it she will then accept it. But 
whether she shall or not, you will have peace without her consent. It is your invasion that has 
made war, your retreat will restore peace. Let us then close forever the approaches of internal 
feud, and so return to the ancient concord, and the old ways of national prosperity and perma- 
nent glory. Let us here, in this teinple consecrated to the Union, perform a solemn lustration. 
Let us wash Mexican blood from our hands, and on these altars, in the presence of that image 
of the Father of his Country that looks down upon us, swear to preserve honorable peace with 
ail the world, and eternal brotherhood with each other. 



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